Solitude Journal 4 – Call for Submissions

»Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free—he has set himself free—for higher dreams, for greater privileges.«

–James Baldwin in Nobody Knows My Name

Time as we know it is a colonial construct. Our dependency on and obsession with time both originate from our perception of time, which is influenced by the industrialist-capitalist complex. Researcher Giordano Nanni reminds us in his book The Colonisation of Time that »by the beginning of the nineteenth century a wide cross-section of British society had strongly correlated the notions of ›civilization‹ and ›true religion‹ with the accurate measurement and profitable use of time.«¹

Reflections on time are not new. Nevertheless, the pandemic has provided the circumstances for us to meditate at length on our relationship with time, as the need to decolonize time grows more urgent in the face of uncertainty and constant change. How can we decolonize time? What if we dedicated more time to art-making, connecting with and caring for others and our environment, rather than being motivated by the industrialist-capitalist complex influenced by colonial measures and concepts on time?

The Solitude Journal invites former or current Solitude fellows, authors, thinkers, scholars, journalists, poets, sound and visual artists and experimental artists to reflect upon, explore, question, reimagine and contemplate the following contexts that work with and alongside the project of decolonization and temporalities such as: the unreality of time, multiple and contested histories, anticapitalist discourse, Afrofuturism, queer positions, feminist scholarship, Indigenous futurity, land sovereignty, and environmental crisis.

The Solitude Journal appears several times a year as an online and print magazine. Each edition presents a selection of contributions conceived specifically for the magazine format, and enables a discursive and in-depth examination of a selected topic.

We look forward to reading your proposals. If you have further questions, please contact us at journal@akademie-solitude.de

Guest Editor

Dzekashu MacViban is the founder of Bakwa, an organization that empowers African storytellers across multimedia outlets such as Bakwa Magazine, Bakwa Books, and BakwaCast. His fiction has appeared in Wasafiri, Kwani? and Jungle Jim. Dzekashu was runner-up in the Sonora Review’s Flash Friday Caption Contest in 2012, and received special mention for the 2016 Short Story Day Africa Prize. He was formerly editorial manager at This Is Africa, co-edited Limbe to Lagos: Nonfiction from Cameroon and Nigeria (2018), and edited Of Passion and Ink: New Voices from Cameroon (2019).

Publishing Fees

Fees are offered after submissions have been reviewed and selected.

Submission Form